Golden Gate Park turf battle: democracy gone awry

We all understand the principle of democracy. We elect our leaders and order them to make informed decisions. If we disapprove of their choices we vote them out of office.

That's not how it works in San Francisco.

"What you are seeing now is a push - mostly from the left - to bypass the government," says political consultant David Latterman. "If they don't like the way the city is going, simply bypass it and put it on the ballot."

The upcoming November election already has John Arntz, director of elections, worried. It's not the issues that concern him. He's worried about the simple logistics.

With offbeat proposals breaking California into six states, or in San Francisco, two initiatives - one pro, one con - about renovating the Beach Chalet soccer fields in Golden Gate Park, the actual physical ballot is growing at an alarming rate. Arntz reminds us that ballots must be printed in English, Spanish and Chinese, so everything appears three times.

The ballot is already going to be four cardboard cards in length, and "we still have a chance to get to five cards," which is the most he's ever seen.

"We're sending out 200 pounds of paper to each polling place," Arntz says, "and there are 567 polling places. It's a lot of paper and very challenging."

As we've seen in recent previous elections, the concept sounds simple and harmless - let the voters decide.

There's just one problem. That's not how it's supposed to work.

The Beach Chalet fields are a seminar on San Francisco elections. The proposal would replace the potholed, ragged soccer fields with synthetic turf and night lights. The hours would be extended, more teams would be able to play and the fields would be safer than the chewed-up turf there now.

The changes are opposed by a small group of residents at the end of the park who hate it when you call them NIMBYs. So let's call them NIMPs - Not in My Park. Except it isn't their park. It belongs to everyone who lives in the city and is run by a city agency.

Hearings and meetings have been held on the project all the way back to 2010. It's been examined and approved by agencies from the Recreation and Park Commission to the Board of Supervisors to the California Coastal Commission. When opponents demanded an environmental impact report, and it supported the project, the critics filed an appeal in Superior Court, which was also denied.

"Numerous studies, both the city's own and those of other federal, state, local and international agencies, support the EIR's conclusions," ruled Superior Court Judge Teri Jackson.

Rec and Park Director Phil Ginsburg called it "perhaps the most vetted project in the history of the city."

Jean Barish of the Coalition to Protect Golden Gate Park says none of that was good enough. Her group has collected over 16,000 signatures to get the issue on the ballot.

"Most of the people who voted on this were not approved by the voters," she said. "This is a few, hand-selected voters. In the opinion of at least 16,000 people, there is strong opposition to the project."

So now, after all that, it is on the ballot. What's more, to head it off, Mayor Ed Lee and a majority of supervisors have crafted an opposing ballot measure that will invalidate the Coalition's.

That's not how this is supposed to work.

"The way grown-ups do it is people sit down for a year and try to plan things out," says Latterman. "You hash it out. There are compromises. Instead, they are just throwing things on the ballot and hope they can win."

Hey, it might work.

"With enough money and a good message, you can win elections," Latterman said. "Who the hell is going to pay attention if there are 20 things on the ballot?"

While there are lots of critics of the process, no one has a good suggestion to change it. The threshold for signatures on a petition to get a measure on the ballot is just 10 percent of the turnout in the last mayoral election. That worked out to about 9,700 names. Easily done.

There has been talk of raising that standard - say, to 20 percent - but that hasn't been popular. So we're stuck with this system, a bloated ballot and a few people with money pushing their agenda.

But at least the soccer field issue will be settled after the November election, right?